James Meadway, Senior economist, new economics foundation
Ruth Potts, Campaign Manager, the Great Transition (at the new economics foundation)
Andrew Simms, nef fellow and Green New Deal Group Member
James Meadway, Senior economist, new economics foundation

A good many of those signing the letter are no longer active in academe:

Sheila Dow, University of Stirling – Economics (retired)
Barbara MacLennan, Universities of York and Manchester – Economics (retired)
Professor Derek Braddon, University of the West of England – Economics (retired)
Ian Gough, Emeritus Professor, University of Bath – Social and Policy Studies (retired)
David Purdy, University of Manchester (retired)
lan O’Shea, UEL – Cultural Studies (retired)

Mark Fisher, University of London
Stewart Lansley, Research Fellow, Bristol University
Dr. Olivier Ratle, University of the West of England, Bristol

So: a devastating broadside that will blow a hole in the government’s economic strategy? Hardly.

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economists-what-economists

I was slightly astonished when I read that "52 economists" had written to the Observer to say that the government’s book-balancing, welfare-reforming strategy was all wrong. First, as unkind people say, there are three kinds of economist – those who can count, and those who can’t. When 364 economists wrote to the Times to beat up Mrs Thatcher’s economic strategy many years ago, they obviously got the number of days in the year wrong. At least this lot know how many weeks there are in a year.

But what really puzzled me is how any economists, never mind 52 of them, should say anything so daft. Plainly, we’ve been spending and borrowing far too long, and now it’s chicken-roosting time. That’s pretty obvious.

So I spent an hour doing a very quick Google check on the 52 that had signed the letter. [Continue reading]